Air Force sets revised rules for prayers by its chaplains

“Initially, I thought the statement was a step in the right direction,” said the Rev. Billy Baugham of the Greenville, S.C.-based International Conference of Evangelical Chaplain Endorsers. “But there’s a ways to go. We are not totally satisfied [the statement] does not eradicate restrictions on free speech. As I read it, I do not see praying in Jesus’ name is guaranteed.”

But Focus on the Family applauded the document.

“We hope these guidelines will bring an end to the frontal assault on the Air Force by secularists who would make the military a wasteland of relativism, where robust discussion of faith is impossible,” spokesman Tom Minnery said.